Haviland
Lake to Marshall Park
Over
Wolf Creek Pass
And
another forest service camp, just west of Creede.
We
drove further up to the other end of the Rio Grande.
We
essentially live at the mouth of the Rio Grande, where it empties into the Gulf
of Mexico. The headwaters are here in the Colorado high country.
A
night at Ridgway State Park, then over Red Mountain Pass.
Ward
Lake to Haviland Lake campground
…to
Havilland Lake Campground between Durango and Silverton for a couple nights.
Then
back to Silverton for the steam train.
Twice
a day it chuffs and chugs into town.
Then
it waits. I swear that steam locomotive is a living breathing
machine. In-between runs it’s at rest, quietly standing by, breathing
softly but steadily with an occasional huff. Lingering next to it, I can
feel the heartbeat from that massive mechanical beast.
Then
it’s back to work, hauling the next load.
See that dark blue
line? That’s the road we should have taken. The light blue line….it
turned to dirt after we were far enough in that we didn’t want to turn around.
The driving was slow, but
the scenery was wonderful. We climbed from an 8,000 foot lake at Vega
State Park, to a 10,000 foot mesa outside of Grand Junction. Grand Mesa
is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world. It has over 300 lakes
and spans 500 square miles. We spent the night there at Ward Lake.
Sylvan Lake SP to Vega SP link
Never been to Vega SP
before, but it’s another high-country lake, 8,000 feet in elevation, so it must
be good.
Honestly, when we got
there though, the campground looked a little more open and developed than we
were expecting,
but it didn’t take long to
grow on us. Obviously, the previous occupants of our site had hummingbird
feeders up, because we were constantly swarmed by three different kinds of
hummingbirds stopping to check out anything with a hint of red.
Then we took a drive
around the lake and wildlife was plentiful.
We saw grouse. We
hardly ever see grouse!
We’re close to where
Gunnison Sage Grouse live, but I think these are Dusky Grouse.
White-tailed deer fawns.
And a marmot!
What a dude!
Yeah. We like Vega
State Park.
And now we’re home.
But I’ll still send out a few more Colorado camping pictures.
Elevation
8,500 feet. Two nights.
Warm
days. Cool nights. Glorious.
Tonight,
we’re in San Antonio.
We
stopped in East Vail at the memorial for Alex.
Alexander
Paul. He has my middle name.
Miss
that boy.
We
were in Lubbock last night. Tonight we’re in San Angelo.
Short
days driving and good internet in the afternoons. Now I can keep up with
everything again.
It’s
a hundred degrees.
That
was a long time to be disconnected.
Here’s
what we’ve done so far:
We
left Becky’s a week ago Thursday. We stopped by the Vail Memorial Gardens
for a visit with Alex, then spent two nights at Sylvan Lake. From there
we met up with Deb and Jon Pease at Vicco’s Charcoalburger in Glenwood to catch
up with each other, then went on to Vega State Park. Vega is right on the
edge of the Grand Mesa, the highest flat topped mountain in the world, at
10,000 feet. The next night in Ridgway State Park and on to Haviland Lake
Campground North of Durango for two nights. Next up, Marshall Park
Campground outside of Creede. Finally done with the high country, and it
was the weekend so we couldn’t get any more campground reservations, we headed
down to the Alamosa KOA. From there, farther south to the Tucumcari KOA.
From
here, it’s back to work, even though we’re not all the way home yet, and it’s
hotter every day as we continue south, so we’ll stop at KOA cabins with air
conditioning the rest of the way. It’s good to have options. I’ll
catch up on photos and send some highlights as I can.
